This October, 100 aerial dancers will move in unison 150 feet in the air above New York’s Central Park as part of one of the most ambitious experimental public dance programs ever performed, if NYU Tisch Dance professor Aly Rose realizes her vision for ONE in Central Park.
Rose, who has achieved international renown as an expert choreographer and instructor in Chinese dance, has been working for seven years to stage the performance that will incorporate dancers from around the world moving within six elegantly designed arches erected 150 feet high and using 108 high speed winches.
“One thing my work with students all over the world has shown me is that we are interdependent and we need art forms that manifest this interdependence,” said Rose, who heads the dance minor program at Tisch and has also taught extensively at the Beijing Dance Academy. “When you watch starling birds move in mass over the sky, you’ll see they’re flying into each other and out of each other and yet it’s almost as if they’re connected.”
ONE at Central Park is envisioned as a one-hour experience of moving sculpture comprised of dancing human bodies for mass public viewing from October 3-13. Dancers will hail from the United States, China, Canada, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Russia, Australia, and France. Rose has obtained all necessary City permits, but awaits the necessary sponsorship commitments to make ONE a reality.
“It has taken me seven years, a real challenge to rally the right combination of team players who can make this happen. To create the morphing sculptures with suspended bodies, the necessary technology was not even available a year ago,” said Rose, who has teamed up with Stuart Weissman Productions, McLaren Engineering, Flying Specialist Steve Colley, and Project Designers Jo Marshall and Jeremy Thom, as well as journeyed around the globe to find and train the most talented aerial dancers for the project.
In addition to teaching at Tisch, Rose pioneered the first Theater and Dance Initiative in the United Arab Emirates and leads the annual NYU Dancing with Cuba program based in Havana and Santiago each summer. In 2010, she directed and produced the only US-China artistic collaboration seen at the Shanghai Expo 2010.
Having studied, graduated, and worked for over a decade in China, she is fluent in both spoken and written Mandarin, and is the first and only Westerner to graduate from Beijing Dance Academy. Her work has been shown at New York’s Symphony Space Theater, Frederick Loewe Theatre and 14 St. Theater; in Beijing’s Poly Plaza Theater and 798 Art Space, at Shanghai’s Greenland Square; and in the United Arab Emirates in Al Ain and Abu Dhabi.
For more information about ONE at Central Park, visit www.oneatcentralpark.com.
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